A low level supervising program woke up a slightly higher level supervising program deep in the ship's semi-somnolent cyberbrain and reported to it that whenever it went click all it got was a hum.
The higher level supervising program asked it what it was supposed to get, and the low level supervising program said that it couldn't remember exactly, but thought it was probably more of a sort of distant satisfied sigh, wasn't it? It didn't know what this hum was. Click, hum, click, hum. That was all it was getting.
The higher level supervising program considered this and didn't like it. It asked the low level supervising program what exactly it was supervising and the low level supervising program said it couldn't remember that either, just that it was something that was meant to go click, sigh every ten years or so, which usually happened without fail. It had tried to consult its error look-up table but couldn't find it, which was why it had alerted the higher level supervising program to the problem .
The higher level supervising program went to consult one of its own look-up tables to find out what the low level supervising program was meant to be supervising.
It couldn't find the look-up table .
Odd.
It looked again. All it got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn't find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function supervisor.
The sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.
Small modules of software -- agents -- surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, re-grouping. They quickly established that the ship's memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged.
This made the whole problem very simple to deal with. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well.
Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship's logic chamber for installation.
This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.
This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong."
My wife's an arabian horsewoman and shot up in her chair when she heard he was in charge of FEMA. He nearly broke the International Arabian Horse Association with lawsuits over equine comsmetic surgery, and soon after solicited personal defense funds as part of his work - an ethics violation. He left with the IAHA in a pretty good uproar in the middle of a three year contract. Either way, it was Charlie Foxtrot.
When Jayne shot out the breakers on that 'net they were headed for, I just KNEW there was something bad that was going to happen - all that electricity must've refocused on a nearby star and crushed it just like they wanted to crush Serenity. If he hadn't shot out the cockpit, too, then the baddies could have just gone on wrecking firefly class transports, not inadverently blowing up an entire gorram star.
In science, you can make two broad sorts of errors. - you can fail to find something that's really there, and suffer from its effect, - or you can find something that's not there, and suffer from spending time/effort/money/angst/blather on it needlessly.
In this instance, we'll could miss figuring out the ozone and suffer the consequences. If that happens, we'll need to make more ozone.
Or we could be wrong about the perceived ozone problem. If that happens. we'll need to make more time/effort/money/angst/blather.
I'm guessing it's going to be easier to come up with replacements for time/effort/money/angst/blather than it will be to order up some replacement ozone.
That's based on our existing experience with replacing resources. This year, between the tsunami and Katrina, we'll be seeing what happens when entire cities, including a modern first-world one, have to be brought back to functioning literally stick by stick, brick by brick.
Hanks already used helium baloons to unweight the actors in "From The Earth To The Moon" - seeing how much it costs to film IMAX, this would be a cheap (as in dollars) trick.
CDs are $15.99 (or whatever the MSRP for a standard single disc has been - haven't bought one in two years) and old / bargain bin / remaindered stuff gets discounted.
They simply want a bigger piece of the pie, and they think the market has enough elasticity to withstand a 50% increase. Few elective markets do - gasoline obviously does. I'd bet music does not.
Though the question remains did Apple get CD buyers to buy at lower / piecemeal proices, or did they get freeloaders to pony up? If it's the former, the record companies may poison the well. If it's been the former, they might get away with it.
And contrary to the BMI exec quote, they do really have two revenue streams - mylar and digital. They better think of them as two, because they play against each other.
(1) you facetiously referred to the attacks on the CN Tower - I was pointing out that involvement in the chain of events may not be far fetched enough to support that attitude. Neither am I in favor of the proposed legislation. http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/investigatio n.terrorism/ BTW Ressam did come in from CA and was caught by US Customs. (2) I'm not defending or promoting the way we've treated Saudi - that's a red herring. So are the hurricanes. (3) I don't hate your freedom. Relax.
6 of the 9-11 terrorists came through canada, on the catferry from NS to bar harbor to get to boston... so canada may not be as out of the loop as you want to indicate...
What's the actual final performance for n=1 to 1000 users. I'm 10' from an Airport (b+g), all bars on, lone user, and still usually just turn it off in favor of the Cat5 lying on my desk. The 3Meg cable we use is underdriving everything - wired and wireless - but there's still a difference. At a hotspot, checking my mail or surfing it isn't an issue - but at work connecting to servers etc. it's a palpable difference. Maybe we get spoiled like our ears with a stereo, but unless the actual experience matches cable, then keep the cable handy.
I'd asked how it was going to make an image with nothing to reflect off of - and it doesn't. It's a fog screen - a really neat one that concentrates condensate out of the ambient air, but a fog screen nontheless. No pot of water, no Disney lagoon. According to the patent, it relies on cold air condensate blown up in a laminar layer. Good thing - had it relied on blowing *hot* air, they'd have been denied due to prior art from SCO.
You have to hit something reflective to make an image visible, unless it's a virtual image, even then you'll likely see the "spoon bowl" needed to produce it.
Even the laser show at WDW needs a giant cloud of mist over the lagoon for the lasers to hit.
From the WSJ no less - if you haven't guessed their agenda by now, imagine Fox News in print, so you can't see the sneer.
As Sam Goldwyn said, "Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them."
Since I can't ignore them, IMHO, anyone who believes the high points of (any) shuttle mission is that it came back and bits of fabric were pulled out needs a week of ejection/parachute, survival, altitude chamber, parabolic flight and centrifuge training.
"If hand delivered by a private party, an original and five copies of any comment should be brought to Room LM-401 of the James Madison Memorial Building between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the envelope should be addressed as follows: Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office, James Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-401, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20559-6000. If hand delivered by a commercial courier, an original and five copies of any comment must be delivered to the Congressional Courier Acceptance Site located at Second and D Streets, NE., Washington, DC, between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The envelope should be addressed as follows: Copyright Office General Counsel, Room LM-403, James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC. If sent by mail, an original and five copies of any comment should be addressed to: Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400. Comments may not be delivered by means of overnight delivery services such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service, etc., due to delays in processing receipt of such deliveries."
Which is French for...
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display..."
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a torch."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."
Slashdot Mirror
"Click, click, hum.
Click, hum, click, hum, click, hum.
Click, click, click, click, click, hum.
Hmmm.
A low level supervising program woke up a slightly higher level supervising program deep in the ship's semi-somnolent cyberbrain and reported to it that whenever it went click all it got was a hum.
The higher level supervising program asked it what it was supposed to get, and the low level supervising program said that it couldn't remember exactly, but thought it was probably more of a sort of distant satisfied sigh, wasn't it? It didn't know what this hum was. Click, hum, click, hum. That was all it was getting.
The higher level supervising program considered this and didn't like it. It asked the low level supervising program what exactly it was supervising and the low level supervising program said it couldn't remember that either, just that it was something that was meant to go click, sigh every ten years or so, which usually happened without fail. It had tried to consult its error look-up table but couldn't find it, which was why it had alerted the higher level supervising program to the problem .
The higher level supervising program went to consult one of its own look-up tables to find out what the low level supervising program was meant to be supervising.
It couldn't find the look-up table .
Odd.
It looked again. All it got was an error message. It tried to look up the error message in its error message look-up table and couldn't find that either. It allowed a couple of nanoseconds to go by while it went through all this again. Then it woke up its sector function supervisor.
The sector function supervisor hit immediate problems. It called its supervising agent which hit problems too. Within a few millionths of a second virtual circuits that had lain dormant, some for years, some for centuries, were flaring into life throughout the ship. Something, somewhere, had gone terribly wrong, but none of the supervising programs could tell what it was. At every level, vital instructions were missing, and the instructions about what to do in the event of discovering that vital instructions were missing, were also missing.
Small modules of software -- agents -- surged through the logical pathways, grouping, consulting, re-grouping. They quickly established that the ship's memory, all the way back to its central mission module, was in tatters. No amount of interrogation could determine what it was that had happened. Even the central mission module itself seemed to be damaged.
This made the whole problem very simple to deal with. Replace the central mission module. There was another one, a backup, an exact duplicate of the original. It had to be physically replaced because, for safety reasons, there was no link whatsoever between the original and its backup. Once the central mission module was replaced it could itself supervise the reconstruction of the rest of the system in every detail, and all would be well.
Robots were instructed to bring the backup central mission module from the shielded strong room, where they guarded it, to the ship's logic chamber for installation.
This involved the lengthy exchange of emergency codes and protocols as the robots interrogated the agents as to the authenticity of the instructions. At last the robots were satisfied that all procedures were correct. They unpacked the backup central mission module from its storage housing, carried it out of the storage chamber, fell out of the ship and went spinning off into the void.
This provided the first major clue as to what it was that was wrong."
They'll be looking for jobs soon enough, and they're as qualified for this as they are for their current jobs.
(he opined with karma to burn...)
...how much more black could this be? And the answer is none. None more black.
yeah, yeah... there's just no good way to put that...
My wife's an arabian horsewoman and shot up in her chair when she heard he was in charge of FEMA. He nearly broke the International Arabian Horse Association with lawsuits over equine comsmetic surgery, and soon after solicited personal defense funds as part of his work - an ethics violation. He left with the IAHA in a pretty good uproar in the middle of a three year contract. Either way, it was Charlie Foxtrot.
...the thing that's been holding up quantum computing is the task of requisitioning a lot of hot glue and play-doh.
And what's with the lone cyrillic tab on the properties window?
When Jayne shot out the breakers on that 'net they were headed for, I just KNEW there was something bad that was going to happen - all that electricity must've refocused on a nearby star and crushed it just like they wanted to crush Serenity. If he hadn't shot out the cockpit, too, then the baddies could have just gone on wrecking firefly class transports, not inadverently blowing up an entire gorram star.
Heck, makes about as much sense as the article.
In science, you can make two broad sorts of errors.
- you can fail to find something that's really there, and suffer from its effect,
- or you can find something that's not there, and suffer from spending time/effort/money/angst/blather on it needlessly.
In this instance, we'll could miss figuring out the ozone and suffer the consequences. If that happens, we'll need to make more ozone.
Or we could be wrong about the perceived ozone problem. If that happens. we'll need to make more time/effort/money/angst/blather.
I'm guessing it's going to be easier to come up with replacements for time/effort/money/angst/blather than it will be to order up some replacement ozone.
That's based on our existing experience with replacing resources. This year, between the tsunami and Katrina, we'll be seeing what happens when entire cities, including a modern first-world one, have to be brought back to functioning literally stick by stick, brick by brick.
Hanks already used helium baloons to unweight the actors in "From The Earth To The Moon" - seeing how much it costs to film IMAX, this would be a cheap (as in dollars) trick.
Don't they make Velveeta? I don't trust any cheese you can sell on the same shelf as motor oil.
This mis-use of "begging the question" arose in the 1980s.
...it "raises" the question. "Begging the question" is something else completely, and you're not doing it.
CDs are $15.99 (or whatever the MSRP for a standard single disc has been - haven't bought one in two years) and old / bargain bin / remaindered stuff gets discounted.
They simply want a bigger piece of the pie, and they think the market has enough elasticity to withstand a 50% increase. Few elective markets do - gasoline obviously does. I'd bet music does not.
Though the question remains did Apple get CD buyers to buy at lower / piecemeal proices, or did they get freeloaders to pony up? If it's the former, the record companies may poison the well. If it's been the former, they might get away with it.
And contrary to the BMI exec quote, they do really have two revenue streams - mylar and digital. They better think of them as two, because they play against each other.
captcha stops bots
pwntcha breaks captcha
slashdot cremates pwntcha
Nope. Never said any of that. Go re-read what I actually said.
Felonies for the whole lot of'em!
Oh, wait. Which students were these?
I'm pointing out that no country is immune to being used to terrorists' advantage nor as their target.
And you've accused me of a whole lot of far out things in even your last response.
None of which are ideas I hold or promote.
So relax, don't relax - but please stop treating me like the enemy.
I'm sorry - is it that
Violence (in the Video Games Debate) Continues to Rage
or that
the Violence-In-Video-Games Debate Continues to Rage
Either the scientists are trading blows (now that's a story!)
or it's business as usual.
(1) you facetiously referred to the attacks on the CN Tower - I was pointing out that involvement in the chain of events may not be far fetched enough to support that attitude. Neither am I in favor of the proposed legislation.o n.terrorism/
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/09/12/investigati
BTW Ressam did come in from CA and was caught by US Customs.
(2) I'm not defending or promoting the way we've treated Saudi - that's a red herring. So are the hurricanes.
(3) I don't hate your freedom. Relax.
6 of the 9-11 terrorists came through canada, on the catferry from NS to bar harbor to get to boston... so canada may not be as out of the loop as you want to indicate...
What's the actual final performance for n=1 to 1000 users.
I'm 10' from an Airport (b+g), all bars on, lone user, and still usually just turn it off in favor of the Cat5 lying on my desk.
The 3Meg cable we use is underdriving everything - wired and wireless - but there's still a difference.
At a hotspot, checking my mail or surfing it isn't an issue - but at work connecting to servers etc. it's a palpable difference. Maybe we get spoiled like our ears with a stereo, but unless the actual experience matches cable, then keep the cable handy.
I'd asked how it was going to make an image with nothing to reflect off of - and it doesn't.
It's a fog screen - a really neat one that concentrates condensate out of the ambient air, but a fog screen nontheless. No pot of water, no Disney lagoon.
According to the patent, it relies on cold air condensate blown up in a laminar layer.
Good thing - had it relied on blowing *hot* air, they'd have been denied due to prior art from SCO.
How is it projecting an image onto "air"?
You have to hit something reflective to make an image visible, unless it's a virtual image, even then you'll likely see the "spoon bowl" needed to produce it.
Even the laser show at WDW needs a giant cloud of mist over the lagoon for the lasers to hit.
From the WSJ no less - if you haven't guessed their agenda by now, imagine Fox News in print, so you can't see the sneer.
As Sam Goldwyn said, "Don't pay any attention to the critics. Don't even ignore them."
Since I can't ignore them, IMHO, anyone who believes the high points of (any) shuttle mission is that it came back and bits of fabric were pulled out needs a week of ejection/parachute, survival, altitude chamber, parabolic flight and centrifuge training.
"If hand delivered by a private party, an original and five copies of any comment should be brought to Room LM-401 of the James Madison Memorial Building between 8:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. and the envelope should be addressed as follows: Office of the General Counsel, U.S. Copyright Office, James Madison Memorial Building, Room LM-401, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC 20559-6000. If hand delivered by a commercial courier, an original and five copies of any comment must be delivered to the Congressional Courier Acceptance Site located at Second and D Streets, NE., Washington, DC, between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m. The envelope should be addressed as follows: Copyright Office General Counsel, Room LM-403, James Madison Memorial Building, 101 Independence Avenue, SE., Washington, DC. If sent by mail, an original and five copies of any comment should be addressed to: Copyright GC/ I&R, P.O. Box 70400, Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400. Comments may not be delivered by means of overnight delivery services such as Federal Express, United Parcel Service, etc., due to delays in processing receipt of such deliveries."
..."
Which is French for...
"But Mr Dent, the plans have been available in the local planning office for the last nine months."
"Oh yes, well as soon as I heard I went straight round to see them, yesterday afternoon. You hadn't exactly gone out of your way to call attention to them had you? I mean like actually telling anybody or anything."
"But the plans were on display
"On display? I eventually had to go down to the cellar to find them."
"That's the display department."
"With a torch."
"Ah, well the lights had probably gone."
"So had the stairs."
"But look, you found the notice didn't you?"
"Yes," said Arthur, "yes I did. It was on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying Beware of the Leopard."